


The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter Eight

by itstonedme



Series: The Eyes of Blenheim [8]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Edwardian Period, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:25:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1219369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlijah meets <i>Downton Abbey</i>.  The year is 1905.  Orlando is the 9th Duke of Marlborough, married to the beautiful Olivia, with two children.  Elijah is his personal valet, a minister's son.  There will be ten chapters in all.  Special thanks to Stormatdusk for creating the banner for this series shown <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/96077.html">here</a>.</p><p>Disclaimer: Fiction.  No disrespect intended to any actual persons.</p><p>Feedback: always appreciated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter Eight

**Chapter 8**

The return trip to London is particularly pleasant for Elijah. He finds that he likes the new driver, Monaghan, whose clever wit is only surpassed by his sweetness. Elijah is not privy to why Boyd is no longer under employment, nor does the new chap give any hint as to why, even if he knows. Elijah suspects that if he spends a bit of time piecing the events of the past week together, he will figure it out, but there is no time during the drive, so engaging is the conversation between those in the front seat and between the front seat and the back. Orlando's aunt is indeed not one to stand on ceremony, and nothing appears to delight her more than having an automobile full of young men to banter with, station bedamned.

Philippa is dispatched to her front door in good order and Monaghan is left with the motor carriage and to his own devices upon their arrival at Claridges in Mayfair. Orlando has seen the need to mix their accommodations now that he and Elijah will be making more frequent trips that book adjoining rooms. The luggage is situated in their bedrooms, the porter is paid, and the door to their suite barely closed before Orlando and Elijah fly at each another, still in their fall coats, a vortex of groping arms and hungry mouths. Amidst the fury, they strip, outer garments falling to the carpet and flung at chairs as they rotate like a slowly forming cyclone towards the bedroom. By the time Orlando presses Elijah onto the mattress, they are down to their unbuttoned shirts and trousers.

"Strip the bed," Elijah says thickly, "and put me in it."

Orlando cannot argue with an order convincingly made, even if it's his valet – especially _since_ it's his valet – telling him. As he reaches for the pillows, Elijah stands, slipping behind him to run his hands over the silk blend covering Orlando's ass before he reaches around to his hip bones and pulls him against his pelvis.

"You," Orlando gasps over his shoulder as he whips the coverlets back, "you are the devil incarnate. What has happened to my shy, retiring manservant?" He turns, gathering Elijah's face in his hands as he sinks onto his lips, their mouths once more an unbanked fire. Without stopping, he pulls Elijah's shirt from his trousers and tackles the button on his waistband single-handedly, unfastening the buttons of the fly while he peels the shirt from Elijah's shoulders. Elijah shakes it free and grapples with Orlando's trousers.

"He has been holed up in his little room," Elijah replies, "fisting himself senseless, all because a rich man of irrefutable rank introduced him to the sinful ways of a degenerate." The sentence ends at the same moment that he bends, pushing Orlando's trousers and pants to his knees. His cheek is mere inches from Orlando's awakening penis, and Elijah closes his eyes and inhales, remembering how Orlando had mouthed his own cock, and wondering if he will return the favour before the day is done.

"Has this boldness been hiding in you all this time?" Orlando asks as he sits, naked bottom to the sheets, and toes off his shoes so that he can kick his legs free of clothing and remove his sock suspenders and stockings. 

"Apparently," Elijah grins, stooping to pick up the discarded garments.

"Don't you dare!" Orlando warns, grabbing Elijah with a laugh and flinging him onto the bed. "Let them wrinkle where they fall." He peels off his shirt and stands to untie Elijah's shoes, then strips him of his socks and trousers by the cuffs. 

Elijah is grinning as Orlando moves him further up the mattress so that they can lie face to face. "It seems my apparent boldness has been awaiting the opportunity to make itself known. I'm honestly surprised myself."

"I like it," Orlando says. "Sexual frustration has made you playful. Alas, for my part, it has only made me angry."

Elijah draws his fingers to Orlando's lips, tracing the upper edge and laughing when Orlando traps it in his mouth and sucks. "Then let's play so that your anger goes away."

"I like that idea," Orlando says around the finger in his mouth.

"May I tell you something else?" Elijah says. "Wanting you all week has actually made me itchy, but in a very good way." 

Orlando's eyes seem to grow darker and he pulls off Elijah's finger. "I like that even more," he growls. "Itchy is very, _very_ good." He cups Elijah's cheek and softly kisses him, his tongue spreading the lips in its path and pushing inside. They tumble and tangle, Orlando pressing Elijah into the bed, crawling on top of him to grind against his trapped erection. When their lips part, Orlando asks, "Have you given any thought as to whether you might be willing to try something more intimate?" 

"I have," Elijah replies, his hand reaching down to collect Orlando's cock. He gasps in sympathy at the inhaling shudder it evokes. "But I must admit, I still have reservations."

"That's all right," Orlando replies, thumb circling on Elijah's cheek. "If we were to try, I've been thinking that I should be the one to receive you. I'm more comfortable with it, and I think it would balance things between us."

Elijah smiles at him thoughtfully, a smile slowly forming. Then, from out of nowhere, he flips Orlando onto his back and straddles him, pinning his arms above his head. "Me on top?" he grins. 

"Good lord," Orlando laughs. "That struck an obvious chord."

"Don't mistake my height and heft as being ineffectual. I wrestled above my weight class at school."

Orlando's smile softens, his arms limp beneath Elijah's hands. "I quite like being pinned by you."

"And I quite like pinning you."

They smile, saying nothing, until Elijah asks, "So I would be expected to put it, you know, _there?_ "

"You may put it anywhere you wish, Elijah, but if it were to involve me, there are basically only two options, and yes, that is the other."

Elijah is already blushing. 

"But you don't have to," Orlando says quickly. "It's not important."

"No," Elijah says slowly. "It is important. What do we do?"

Orlando has slipped his hands free. "Let me up," he says. "There's something I need to get."

As he goes to his luggage, Elijah goes for his as well, padding naked to his bedroom where he collects one of his valises and returns, opening it on a chair near the bed. Orlando turns to him with a jar in his hand and watches as Elijah unpacks a large bath towel and spreads it on the bed sheet. Their eyes meet as the corners are being flattened. "No evidence," Elijah says.

Orlando holds up the jar. "Evidence," he grins. He crawls onto the bed and lies on his back, his head against the pillows at the head board. "Come," he says, bending his knees and parting them.

There aren't many parts of Orlando's body that Elijah hasn't seen, but as he kneels between Orlando's legs, he admits that His Grace's arsehole isn't one of them. He looks away, and then back, reddening again. 

"You blush now," Orlando murmurs, unscrewing the jar he's placed on his stomach and dipping his fingers into it, "but I wager the next time, your face will heat for entirely different reasons, embarrassment being the least of them. You just wait."

Elijah's eyes creep up to Orlando's, a smile curling his lips. 

"I will do this," Orlando says and he greases his fingers before sliding into himself. Elijah reaches over for a hand towel he has left on a pillow. "Here, let me coat you as well," Orlando tells him. He slides his hands the length of Elijah's cock, who arches at the touch with a mild expletive on his breath.

When they are suitably slick and hands wiped clean, Orlando curls one leg up and reaches for Elijah. "Now take yourself and push into me."

Elijah lines himself up, watching where he's going, Orlando's hands resting lightly on his waist. Until that moment, it has all been rather perfunctory for Elijah, but as the head of his cock presses at Orlando's door, his eyes come up at the very moment that Orlando's head falls back, lips opening on a sigh, and it's something Elijah wants to see over and over again.

"Oh Elijah," Orlando breathes, looking at him. He gathers him about his hips and pulls him close, opening himself so that Elijah can slide in. 

Elijah shudders and falls onto Orlando's shoulder, his fists bunched into the pillows either side of his arms. He is beyond words, so exquisite is the heated silken glove of Orlando's body. His hips kick once, then again before he turns his face into Orlando's hair. He gasps, his hips kicking a third time.

Orlando's arms close around him, one hand coming up to push his hair back from his face so that he can look at him. "Are you all right?" he asks.

Elijah's lids flutter and open. He says nothing, just slides his arms between Orlando and the pillows beneath him, his mouth opening like a little bird's, asking to be filled. 

As they kiss, Orlando begins to rock, sliding along the skewer of Elijah's cock until Elijah catches on and begins to stroke into him. It becomes more animated, this carving into each other, and Orlando brings one leg up to rest his calf against Elijah's arm.

"Touch me," Orlando whispers. "Take me in your hand, please, quickly."

Elijah pulls his arms out from beneath Orlando, and bolstered on one, captures Orlando in his palm and begins to stroke, watching him. He cannot believe how right it feels to be as one with another person. Nor can he believe he would ever want to be with anyone other than Orlando. He does not know how he will ever not want this to happen every moment of every day going forward. They have opened a door they can never again cross back through.

For his part, Orlando cannot take his eyes off Elijah. He is only too aware that not only is this the first time Elijah has been with a man, it is the first time he has been with a lover. The tender responsibility threatens to overwhelm him. 

They speak little as they slide together, instead watching and reading every breathless gasp and gesture, learning what most satisfies. It is slow and laden with everything not said. Elijah is surprised at how the heat and pressure that keeps mounting can ebb if he simply stops moving. And so he stops often, never wanting this to end, glorious in how Orlando feels, how he arches on a groan, eyes never leaving his, rising up onto him, hungrily seeking more. It's a power Elijah had glimpsed the previous week, one that he adores, and he uses it to keep his own orgasm at bay until Orlando perfectly disintegrates, a banquet of feverish groans and messy pulses. Only then does he succumb, curling onto the damp shoulder beneath him and spending himself in relentless waves. When it is over for both of them, Elijah pulls out and stretches alongside, their legs lapping.

"Pffff," Elijah exhales.

"Exactly," Orlando replies.

They are quiet while they recover. Eventually Elijah nudges his chin against Orlando's chest. "I don't know how to ask this," he says. 

Orlando turns his head towards him. "Ask what?"

"If…I…if I did it right."

Orlando stares at him before slowly rolling towards him and wrapping him in his arms. "Elijah, Elijah. Everything about you is right. Every single thing. It isn't about how we perform with each other. I felt that you made love to me. It was perfect." 

Elijah's arms reach around to embrace Orlando. "Good. Because I want everything you are risking for me to be worth it."

Orlando pushes the hair back from Elijah's ear with his mouth, a smile curling its corners. "I must tell you something else. Not only is your strength above your weight class, but your cock is as well."

"Was that a problem?" Elijah asks, pulling away to look at Orlando with concern.

"Oh my God," Orlando laughs. "You may be the only man I've ever met who, when praised about the size of his cock, doesn't puff up his feathers and crow."

Elijah laughs but soon grows quiet. "I need to ask you something."

"Anything." 

"You know that I am not worldly like you are, about a lot of things."

Orlando smiles. "It doesn't matter."

"I know that when it comes to sexual affairs, you have been with men as well as women, and that you're comfortable making love to either. So I need to know what your intentions are with me so that I won't form expectations that might not be right or would be burdensome to you." 

Orlando frowns. "Burdensome? Do you think I might only be interested in you sexually?"

Elijah doesn't reply for a moment. "Perhaps," he finally says. "I don't know if there are other men currently in your life. I would ask that you let me know if there are."

Orlando squiggles in the sheets so that his face is across from Elijah's. He grasps Elijah's hand and brings it to his lips, kissing it. "There are not. Elijah, my previous relations with men were strictly sexual. To be blunt, we fucked and fled. It is the nature of the beast. Once the morning came, it was as if nothing happened. Mostly, it was during my university days and there was often quite a bit of liquor involved. When I wed, I put it behind me, thinking that I could. But I cannot. Not after having met you." 

Elijah has listened quietly. "You know that I was raised by a minister, and my mother was devoted to him. It was a loving union, and it nearly broke my father when he lost her. It was the only relationship in which I have any true reference of how two people should care for each other. If ours is not to be that way, I need you to tell me so that I will not look for it between us. I will understand if it is not. I just need to know."

Orlando raises himself on his elbow, his eyes never leaving Elijah's. He caresses his cheek, his eyes wandering to where his hand strokes, to Elijah's lips and hair before settling back on his eyes. "I care for you so deeply, it frightens me," he says. "You are more of a companion to me than anyone has ever been, even in our brief acquaintance. I want to explore every part of you – your mind, your body, your past, your thoughts, your opinions, your tastes. I want to know you and then know you more. You fill me as water fills a cup, Elijah. I don't know what the future will bring except that I will be forever frustrated that I cannot grow old with you running around Blenheim as my equal and my partner. But know that my intentions for you are most honorable and loving."

Elijah is beyond relief, completely staggered by Orlando's words. "You've eased my thoughts. Thank you," he whispers.

"Fear no more, Elijah," Orlando sighs, reclining once more beside him and pulling him close. He doesn't expect such declarations from Elijah. Only a week ago, Elijah was oblivious to the any of these feelings, both on Orlando's part and his own. No, it is far too early in Elijah's trajectory and completely in keeping with the guarded manner in which he minds himself. Orlando can only hope that one day, the sentiment will be returned, but for the moment, he understands.

"So tell me why the size of my cock is a particularly good thing," Elijah asks.

Orlando reaches back to the bedside table for the jar of jelly. "Open up and show me your pretty bottom," he says, smiling broadly. "I'm going to let you in on a little secret."

*

By mid-afternoon, Orlando decides that he needs to hunt down Monaghan to give the pretext of their London journey some substance. He bathes and hustles up his driver for a short trip to the dredging engineer's office, ostensibly on business. But while the car waits parked with Monaghan against its fender smoking a rolled cigarette, Orlando sits in the owner's office with his feet on the desk, socializing over brandy and laughing at outrageous stories from the trade. Coming as he has from landed title and wedded money, he has infinite admiration for – and not a small degree of envy of – the entrepreneurial class. 

A little more than an hour later, he emerges to find Monaghan resting behind the wheel of the Albion. "Are you thirsty?" he asks his driver as he climbs into the back seat.

"I could be," Monaghan replies. 

"Then find us a decent pub so we can wet our whistles before I head back to the hotel. You and I haven't had a chance to really talk."

"Will we be picking up your valet, Your Grace?" Monaghan asks as he engages the tricky electric starter and hopes for the best.

"No," Orlando replies casually. "Wood is on a mission at the tailor's. I don't expect to see him back for a few hours." The lie comes easily enough, something he regrets he's not bothered by. 

Truth is, the last he saw of him, Elijah was vanishing within a tub of soapy bubbles, languidly preparing himself as a fresh and sweet-smelling feast for Orlando to devour upon his return to their hotel room.


End file.
